Google has hired a former hacker who has spent the last three years working for the US Department of Defense's secretive military research bureau.
The Chocolate factory poached Peiter "Mudge" Zatko from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and will put him to work in its own research skunkworks.
He will take up …

Scrambled, maybe, but definitely not "poached"

In an effort to avoid settling into predictability and slowing innovation, DARPA encourages folks to spend only limited, few-year-long stints there. Seems that Mudge, like Dugan before him, hit that limit, and so "poached" doesn't seem an apt characterization.

Lots of buzzwords here--translation provided:

"Optimized for speed. Small, lean, resourced. With agility, freedom from bureaucratic constraints, and a willingness to embrace risk as core attributes. ATAP is focused on harnessing best-in-class, interdisciplinary talent from inside and outside Motorola Mobility, as well as technological developments from whatever the source."

In other words, a gigantic money-soak operation that would send even the beefiest black hole into a fit of jealous rage that the taxpayers are somehow paying for, despite the fact it's Google and not DARPA.

<<--You need one of these constantly going off to counteract the gravitational effects of a black hole. Because, without that, everything collapses in on itself and BLAH BLAH BLAH.

L0pht

Easy to forget just how massively important Mudge & the L0pht were...I recall many hours spent accessing their server - some of the tricks and tips I learnt there transformed my understanding of how computers, networks and phone systems' operated ... And stood me in very good stead when it came to passing CESG requirements many years later (to say nothing of using their tools to pen test 'my' own Gov Dept 'hardened' environment!)